Odd One Out
by RevyCaitEll
Summary: Danny Fenton. Danny Phantom. Two sides of the same coin. Part of that was hiding Danny's identity as Phantom... So what if his parents knew from the very beginning? AU requested by gaara king of the sand.
1. Chapter 1

Hi guys, here's a new story.

This was requested by gaara king of the sand, who asked if there could be a story where the Fenton parents knew from the very beginning that Danny was Phantom, so thanks to gaara for the awesome request and idea.

Thank you very much to caitgirl1 for beta reading at late hours. Lol

Enjoy:)

PS this is just a prologue.

* * *

Maddie remembered that day clearly. Too clearly. She had been in the kitchen, Jack was watching the news. Both of them nursing their losses, the portal they had worked so hard on failed right before their very eyes.

A deep sadness, a hollow ache filled Maddie. All of the hours spent in the lab labouring away, for nothing?

All of the time that she could have spent with her children and Maddie had wasted it doing calculations and soldering countless intricate circuit boards.

Then there was the gut wrenching scream.

Maddie dropped the knife instantly, legs rushing her to the lab. Streaks of lightening, a sickly green colour sparked from the failed ghost portal.

Her heart stopped when she saw Danny in the midst of the deadly electricity.

Sam and Tucker watched in horror, maybe in shock. Maybe Maddie was in shock too.

Danny convulsed within the lightening, his back arching painfully.

And then he began to change.

His white jumpsuit flickered to black, his dark hair turned pale. The flashing of it all made her eyes sting and Maddie vaguely felt Jack at her side.

She hadn't noticed his arrival.

All of a sudden the electricity fizzled out, the horrendous, terrifying noise ceased and the quietness was eerie.

Maddie lunged forward, expecting to cradle her dead son in her arms, only to find bright green eyes staring back into hers. The figure fell forward and Maddie instinctively caught him. He was so light, a feather in her strong embrace.

Pale hair was signed and stuck out at wild angles, a truly Einstein look. The boy was cold.

"Danny?" Maddie choked out. What had she done to her son? Was he even alive? Was this even him?

"Mom?" Maddie hugged him harder, it was Danny. It had to be.

Jack reached for Danny's shoulder, placing a comforting hand there.

"What happened?" He asked gently. Danny didn't seem capable of answering, clinging tightly to Maddie like his life depended on it.

"I told him to go inside. I-I-I told him to go _inside_ the portal. I thought it was broken. Oh my god, is he alright? This is all my fault," Sam paced, pulling anxiously at her clothes, purple eyes full of pain and guilt.

"He went inside the portal and it turned on?" Jack pieced together. His face seemed to drain of colour.

"I tripped. You guys, you must have left the switch on the inside on and forgotten," Danny managed to stand up, his legs wobbling.

Green eyes, white hair.

What had they done to their son?

"Danny honey. You have to be completely honest with me. Does anywhere hurt? Do you feel funny or off?" Maddie began to pat him down, looking for injury.

"No Mom, I'm fine. Really. I feel...lighter. And cold, but the cold feels right or something. It's weird," Danny took a few steps, his stride growing more confident with each unsteady footstep.

Maddie couldn't help but stare. Her son shouldn't be alive, yet he was walking away to escape her motherly clutches.

"Guys why are you all looking at me funny?" Danny asked. Sam just pointed to a mirror.

Danny went to the mirror, jumping in fright at seeing his appearance.

"What happened to my hair? And my eyes?" He yelped. A white wave of light erupted from Danny's middle startling him further and Maddie raced towards him fearing the worst.

When the light dispersed there stood her son, Danny Fenton.

The mysterious white hair had vanished, replaced by the familiar black mop, and when he turned around ice blue eyes met her's.

"Whoa," was all Danny had to say for himself, after scaring the life out of Maddie for the second time in the space of five minutes.

"That was awesome!" Sam yelled squashing Danny in a bear hug.

Maddie was positive she was in shock.

It felt like she had just seen a ghost.


	2. Chapter 2

Here's the next update.

Beta read by the awesome caitgirl1 (THANK YOU)

This story has been requested by gaara king of the sand, where basically Maddie and Jack knew from the beginning that Danny was Phantom. Thanks gaara for the creative idea and request!

* * *

Danny was ushered upstairs, mind reeling at what had just happened. He still tingled in places from the portal.

Sam was beside him, less panicked now that he was able to walk around without stumbling. The sensations from earlier had stopped when the white light had passed over his body, changing him back to his original appearance. Even though he wore his clothes under the hazmat suit, here they were on him.

There was a flare of coldness in his chest and Danny hesitantly imagined himself pulling it.

"Ah!" He yelped as the white light flashed over him again. Sam stared at him, a scrutinising look on her face. The weirdness had returned full force. He felt light, like gravity had loosened its hold on him.

Danny checked himself over, and found himself back to wearing the hazmat suit. He fingered a strand of white hair and noticed the pale glow of his hand.

"Sam am I _glowing_?" Danny was investigating his hands, realising that his entire body gave off a silvery light.

"Yep. Your eyes are green again too," Sam replied. Jack and Maddie rushed into the room.

"Danny?" Maddie looked like she had her heart in her throat.

"I'm fine Mom. I think I figured this out. There's like a coldness in my chest. The only way I can describe it is when I pull at it the white ring thing changes me into this. Now I feel a warm patch in my chest," Danny awkwardly pointed to where he felt the comforting warmth. He tugged at it and the white ring flashed, startling his parents.

Danny grabbed a piece of hair and smiled when it was black. His hands didn't glow so he supposed that that was a good thing too.

"You can change at will?" Maddie asked worry clouding her gaze.

"Yeah. Nothing really hurts either, I just feel tired. And hungry. I'm really hungry," Danny's stomach confirmed his statement by grumbling loudly.

Jack snickered at the noise. This was a good sign. If Danny was in shock from the trauma, he wouldn't feel hunger. But then again another symptom was tiredness.

Danny marched off to the kitchen and began to rummage around the presses. He found a bag of unopened pasta and whooped in delight. Unopened pasta meant uncontaminated pasta. His parents had a bad habit of leaving samples of their experiments in the fridge and presses. Now he just needed sauce.

Sam and Tucker had joined him, Sam taking the initiative had snatched a chopping board and was slicing up onions and other vegetables.

Tucker had went straight to the fridge and was getting his own board to chop some chicken fillets.

Maddie and Jack just watched, awestruck. Sam and Tucker had started their routine argument and Danny was helplessly stuck in the middle.

Danny had began boiling the pasta, with the large amount of it in one pot while a small pot bubbled away beside it.

The ingredients were added to the pots, with no meat put into the smaller one, obviously meant for Sam.

"When did you guys learn to cook?" Maddie asked incredulously checking the pasta. They had taken the pasta out of the pots and had it steaming on pans. A delicious aroma saturated the kitchen and Danny could hear his parent's stomachs growling.

He rechecked the heat on the pan, stirring the pasta to make sure it didn't stick and burn. He left the food in Tucker's care while he went to get plates. He noticed the carrots on the countertop and the knife his mother dropped in her hurry to the lab. It was surreal.

Around an hour ago he was being zapped alive by green lightening and now here he was cooking pasta. He lucky. Very lucky.

He almost died.

The thought reverberated around his skull. Dead. End of the line. No going back.

Deeply unsettled at the realisation that he narrowly escaped Death's icy clutches, he tried to shrug off his dark thoughts.

Danny distracted himself and gathered a few plates in his arms, gingerly balancing them. He brought them to the table almost dropping one in the process.

Maddie seemed to have woken up from her trance and had gotten out knives and forks. The small kitchen was stuffed to the gills with people, Sam and Tucker had to squeeze around Jack to drop their loads of pasta onto the awaiting plates.

Full of living breathing people.

* * *

The five of them dug in, while Maddie tried to eat as much as she could. She was watching Danny like a hawk, every move he made was scrutinised. The second she saw a flash of pain or discomfort she was ready to act. Any mention of the near death experience made Danny still uncomfortable and the others noticed.

The conversation was mixed- Tucker was talking about the amazing roast his grandmother made at Christmas time and Sam was animatedly discussing the various plants she had in her greenhouse.

Danny would cut in now and then to make a joke or snarky comment, but otherwise was uncharacteristically quiet.

The clean up was quick and Danny was about to hand Maddie the last plate when his hand seemingly disappeared from existence.

The plate smashed to the ground.

"Wah!" Danny yelped as his hand mysteriously became solid again. It had been transparent and the plate had passed _through_ it.

"You alright?" Jack asked grabbing a brush and sweeping up the remains of the plate.

"It's like Danny's hand went transparent, the plate literally fell through his hand," Maddie explained poking Danny's hand. It was solid to her touch.

"Wait, you mean something along the lines of intangibility?" Sam looked over Danny's shoulder to see for herself.

"What's that mean?" Tucker asked going to Danny's other side.

"It means that something is not solid, like you can pass through it. You can't touch something intangible," Sam explained.

"Oh,"

"Try and see if you can do it again," Maddie held onto to Danny's hand. He screwed his eyes shut in concentration. He stood still for a few moments and Maddie gasped as his hand flickered for a second, her own harmlessly passing through the appendage.

"Whoa!" Danny jumped back landing on Tucker's toes.

"Ow dude," Tucker griped fixing his beret.

"Could this be a side effect of the portal?" Jack asked Maddie. She could feel his unease. What had happened to their son? What had the portal done to him?

"Danny I think we should take you to hospital," Maddie said gently. Danny looked horrified at the suggestion.

"No, I'm grand I do not want to be dissected thank you very much," he grumbled. Tucker behind him had paled at the mention of the word 'hospital'.

Maddie recoiled at his response. "Danny nothing like that will happen," she tried to reassure him.

"I'm okay. I think if I was going to die I would have done it by now," Danny replied bluntly.

Maddie squeezed his shoulder. "Danny I think it would be best-"

"Mom, _please_. I really feel fine and I don't want anyone else to know okay. Can we try it figure out ourselves first?" Danny was examining the floor, one hand had gone to the back of his neck.

Jack shared a glance. Was this worth taking the chance? If Danny had been mutated by the portal, which now looked highly probable, maybe sending him to the hospital could be the worst thing they could do.

But then again he could be dying right before their eyes and simply not showing any symptoms.

An awful image popped into Maddie's head, her son strapped down to a table, a scalpel poised above his chest…

"Okay. But the first sign that something is dangerously wrong-"

"Don't worry, I like living. I will say something," Danny promised. Maddie struggled to get the unsettling scene from her head. It made her sick to her stomach and she felt like she was going to throw up.

"I don't think we should tell anyone else about this," Sam said quietly.

Everyone turned around to stare.

"Hey don't look at me like that. People are going to ask questions if we say 'Oh don't worry Danny here was just shocked by a giant portal and can make himself change appearance and turn intangible like a mutant from X-Men. He's totally fine'" Sam glared at them.

It did make sense. Questions would be asked and that could put Danny in danger. Right now he was a miracle, he survived countless amounts of volts going through his body for at least fifteen seconds.

Lightening that was not normal. Maddie left Jack to watch Danny, telling him to keep a keen eye.

She went down to the basement.

The portal flooded the lab with an eerie green light. A strange warping sound filled the lab. The noise was foreign, strange to Maddie's ears. She examined it closer. Earlier her main priority had been Danny, so she hadn't even glanced at the portal.

The Fenton Ghost Portal.

Functional, swirling before her. After all these years, all the failures and setbacks. She briefly reminisced the accident with Vlad, her old college buddy. Jack had know the man better, but she still had felt tremendously guilty. Vlad had been hospitalised and as far as she knew it had been a long hard recovery.

Was it worth it? Danny had nearly been killed right in front of her, Maddie being helpless only able to watch as her son writhed in agony.

Ghosts. Her hobby, her interest, practically her career. Was it now an obsession? It almost robbed Danny of his life.

Did the portal even work correctly?

Maddie worked up the courage to stand in front of the machine. She had to know.

Maddie went to the pile of equipment on the table. She quickly mounted a camera onto to metal pole, wires connecting it to a monitor on the other end of the pole. She tested the contraption, satisfied when the monitor blinked to life and showed the swirling mass of the portal.

Maddie slowly pushed the pole through the portal. The monitor buzzed and sparked and Maddie was afraid that it would burn out. She risked putting the pole further in and she nearly dropped it when she saw the visual feed.

A mass expense of green was on the other side. Various types of doors floated around aimlessly and the sensors on the camera told Maddie that the air was breathable, but was highly saturated with ectoplasm.

It worked.

The Fenton Ghost Portal was a success, but had it been worth the cost?


	3. Chapter 3

Hey everybody, here is the long awaited update. I just want to say thanks to all of you, the community on FF is amazing.

I'm sorry for the wait, with everything going on, and the fact that I went up to Monaghan a few times (there's no internet) and then I went camping for a few days too. So yeah, I've been a bit busy lately, but here it is :)

Thanks to caitgirl1 for beta reading and being the weirdest person I know. :P

Requested by gaara king of the sand.

Enjoy ;)

* * *

Danny _knew_ that there was something seriously wrong.

He did have some clues, like the fact that he _should_ be dead or that he could change his appearance at will and he glowed, but this was _weird_.

Even more weird than his hand disappearing from existence kind of weird.

He was currently floating above his bed, and if the pale light enveloping him was any indication, Danny had changed form again. (Sam had taken to calling it that and the phrase stuck)

His breath came out as raspy gasps, people don't wake up hovering above their bed. Danny went to call for his parents, frantically hoping that this was some trippy dream. His words died in his throat.

All day his parents had been watching him like hawks, almost as if they were expecting him to vanish before their eyes or drop dead. His nerves had been severely frazzled by their frantic worrying.

But then again, with the current circumstances Danny couldn't exactly blame his parents for their overprotective behaviour. Sam and Tucker hadn't been much better, the two of them had stuck to Danny like glue, only leaving after their own parents were getting antsy.

Danny felt very peculiar, apart from the obvious fact of his inhuman levitation. Everything in his body tingled, a prickly sensation crawled along his skin. Nothing hurt in a sense, but something was off, like a lack of…..

 _Weight_

Or more specifically gravity. Danny was feeling light, so light that he could float away from the world and its problems. Now that his mind had wrapped around the fact that he was indeed _flying_ above his bed, Danny wanted to figure out how he could return to his covers and try to pretend that it had never happened in the first place.

Good god he was getting freakier by the hour. Random body parts disappearing from existence, being able to glow like a bug zapper and now this?

Oh and don't forget about the near death experience too.

That particular thought derailed Danny completely.

Flashes of green licked his vision and for a terrifying second Danny thought that he was trapped in the portal again. A sickly vile green encasing his entire body, it seeped into his skin, invaded his being. Pain, burning, searing, agonising _pain._ He wanted it to stop, to end, anything but the horrendous ache throbbing through his body.

The vivid memory, the rawness of it startled Danny. It was so clear. He didn't remember really what had happened when he had first stumbled out of the smoking portal, just vaguely wondering if he was alive. He had been in a sort of daze throughout the day, not contemplating his experience in the portal.

Now it all came back, with enough force that Danny's breath left him, almost like he was physically slammed in the chest. Blood thundered in his ears and a white light bounced around his room and Danny plummeted to his bed, terrified tears silently streamed down his face.

How was he even alive?

Danny wept quietly, forcing himself to calm down. He wrestled with the gut wrenching fear, the bile in his throat.

It was okay, he was living, he was breathing, he wasn't glowing anymore.

He was just a normal teen lying on his bed.

He didn't die today.

But why did it feel like he had?

* * *

Maddie couldn't sleep.

She tossed and turned and tugged at the covers, but her eyes refused to stay shut and her brain disobeyed her commands to relax.

The Fenton Ghost Portal had failed, her only son had nearly died and now the portal was fully operational. All in one day.

Jack was not doing much better, he was twitching restlessly. Maddie had a niggling suspicion that neither of them were getting any sleep tonight. She kept thinking about Danny, about how close she was to losing him.

And it would have been _her_ fault. The portal, her obsession with it, combined with the crushing disappointment, she hadn't been thinking clearly. Maddie hadn't even considered going with Danny and his friends as he showed them the supposedly dysfunctional portal.

 _Supposedly_ she thought bitterly.

A small part of her was overjoyed. Her life's dream, finally it was a reality!

And then her son's funeral had almost become a reality too.

Everything swirled around her exhausted brain, morbid musings and a whole boat load of sneaky black guilt. It snuck its way here and there, but it always managed a heavy presence.

What type of mother was she?

A new round of guilt began to spear through her when the bedroom door creaked open ever so slightly. In the gloom, Maddie could just make out the black mop of hair that distinctly belonged to her son.

"Danny?" She called softly, sitting up. Jack turned to face the door as well, but he remained silent.

Danny further crept in and Maddie noticed that he was clutching his bed covers tightly. He shuffled forward shyly.

"Can I stay in here tonight?" he asked quietly, Maddie struggled to hear him. Her heart clenched. He sounded so lifeless.

She got up and wrapped her arms around him, noting that Danny's cheeks were damp and that his eyes seemed puffy in the gloom. Jack followed suit wordlessly coming over, snaking his own arms around the pair.

The three of them remained that way for a while, embracing one another. Danny had been stiff at first, but he ever so slowly relaxed and Maddie coaxed him to the massive queen sized bed. Her and Jack placed Danny between them, shrouded in his own bed covers. Jack and Maddie lay on either side of him. Content, Danny seemed to fall asleep instantly and Maddie found herself doing the same.

* * *

Danny woke up mortified when he had realized that he was in his parent's bed. Both of them were sound asleep and he managed to untangle himself from the mess of covers and sneak out of the room. He felt like a tiny little kid again, scared of the monsters hiding in the closet. Danny just hoped they wouldn't mention anything, especially his dad.

Jack Fenton wasn't known for his ability to talk quietly.

Danny was wide awake after his skilful (at least he thought so) escape from his parent's bedroom. He dumped his covers in his own room, removing the evidence of his visit. He crept past Jazz's room, thoroughly delighted at her closed door. She hadn't gotten up yet.

Danny slithered downstairs wanting to enjoy having breakfast on his own. He diligently ignored the toaster in the corner and the microwave was off limits too. (His dad had tried to 'improve' it) Various tools laying around suggested that one of his parents were tinkering with the electronics in the kitchen. Danny looked at the counter top trying to figure out which electronic had been tampered with.

He sighed deeply when he realised that the deep fat fryer was sitting innocently on the table, with a screwdriver beside it. Well it looks like he wasn't going to have chips ( _ **fries?**_ ) anytime soon.

Danny rummaged through the fridge and fished out some rashers and sausages. He placed the meat on a pan and seasoned it with pepper and was greatly satisfied with the aromas filling the kitchen.

* * *

Staring at his empty plate, Danny sat. He was trying to locate the cold sensation in his chest, wondering if it had all been a dream. However he could feel it quite clearly, nestled deep in his being. Tentatively he imagined himself reaching for the cold, grasping at it. A wave of icy cold spread through him, a white light flashed brilliantly.

Danny ran for the bathroom, peering at himself in the mirror. White hair sat atop his head and green eyes blazed in the reflection. His pyjamas had vanished, a black and white hazmat suit stood in their place. Danny felt for a pulse on his wrist, terrified when at first he felt none. It was slow, sluggish, like it was in no rush.

He focused on his breathing, only now noticing how long it would take before he needed another breath. Then there was that tingling, deep in his bones. It buzzed and crawled along his skin. The feeling was so _alien._ It was the exact same feeling as when he had woken up last night.

Danny had been hovering above his bed. He knew it couldn't have been a dream, the weird tingling confirmed it. He stepped back from the mirror, his footsteps light compared to his usual stomp.

Danny came back into the kitchen, going to sit down. He yelped when his butt hit nothing but air.

 _What?!_

Looking around Danny saw that the chair was _in_ him. He leapt back as the chair harmlessly passed through his body. His panicked mind barely registered that he should have been falling through the floor, expect when Danny looked down, he wasn't _on_ the floor.

The floor was about two to three inches beneath him. He was flying. In his kitchen.

Danny forced himself to calm down, the overwhelming fear of falling through the floor, unable to control his descent and getting stuck deep underground plagued his mind. The cold in his chest constricted and expanded, as if responding to his rugged heart beat. A tingle flared in his bones and Danny suddenly felt a breeze hit his face. A breeze from the open window. If he could feel it...

He gingerly tapped his foot against the chair, immensely relieved when the chair felt solid. Danny twisted himself upright, feet connecting solidly to the floor. Feeling ever so slightly brave, he curled his legs up. Leaving the comfort of the ground, Danny splayed his hands out trying to get some balance. He shifted upwards by accident, nearly slamming his head into the roof.

Huh.

Danny concentrated on his legs, imagining himself gently lowering to the ground. He was greatly surprised when that started happening. He drifted to the floor. Danny grinned. He made the conscious thought to move up again.

He floated upwards.

A smirk firmly plastered on his face, Danny swooped around the kitchen gaining confidence with each minute. This was fun. Flying out to the hall, Danny tried to do a lazy loop. He mangled it, smashing into the banisters twice. He tried again. And again. Laughing in delight Danny looped and twisted in the air, as graceful as a retarded seagull. He was getting there though. Each movement become easier, less cumbersome.

"Danny?" His mother called.

Danny jumped, if that was at all possible in the air. Startled, the cold in his chest started shrinking. A warmth pooled around the cold, sealing it away.

The white rings passed over him and Danny plummeted to the ground.

 _Oufff._

Danny lay crumpled on the floor as Maddie peered over the landing bannister.

"You okay honey?" She asked, frowning.

"I'm good," Danny grumbled from his place on the carpet. That had been fun, until the sudden two meter drop.

"What are you doing up so early, it's only seven," Maddie replied coming down the stairs. She obviously hadn't seen his aerial practice.

Danny picked himself up, rubbing his face. The carpet hadn't really cushioned his fall. He felt exhausted, like he had just ran a few laps around the park and his stomach rumbled.

He was starving!

"Are you making breakfast?" Danny asked as he fixed his pyjamas, they were blue with rocket ships and stars on them.

"Yeah, you want some?"

"Yep. Can I have three rashers, four sausages and an egg?" He gave her his best puppy dog look.

"What are you? An Olympic swimmer?" Maddie joked as she walked into the kitchen. She paused, looking at the empty plate.

"Did you already eat something Danny?"

"Yeah but it was only something small," he fibbed. He'd made a good hearty breakfast, Danny had a massive appetite. But after the flying and everything, it felt he had not eaten anything at all.

Huh.

* * *

The whole family was now up at this stage and Danny had cleared his plate. His stomach seemed content, for the moment. One thing that bothered Danny, was that he had a craving. No matter what he ate or drank, there was this gnawing sensation, a deep utter craving for _something._

He looked through the fridge, searched the cupboards.

Nothing he found caught his interest.

Scowling Danny had been in a rotten mood, longing for something that he had no knowledge of.

Jazz yelled goodbye as she went out the door, presumably going to the library, that's how she always spends her Saturday. Danny couldn't imagine being holed up in the library, with only heavy tomes to keep his mind occupied.

They hadn't told her yet.

Danny felt unusually self conscious, the whole incident with getting fried in the portal. ( _Do not think about, don't think about it!)_

Jazz was overbearing, always talking and whining, saying how unhealthy their parent's obsession was with ghosts. Jazz firmly believed that such things didn't exist and Danny hadn't really given it much thought.

He did love her, in a sisterly, brotherly way, but sometimes Jazz was just a little too much. He already had to deal with guilt ridden parents and friends, he honestly did not want to deal with his sister too.

Moping, Danny aimlessly wandered around the house. He was bored, craving like a pregnant woman and feeling distinctly uncertain with life right now. He came to the living room, pausing when he heard something. Poking his head out into the hall, he identified where the sounds were coming from.

Random, strange noises erupted from the lab. The basement door had been left open and Danny could clearly hear his parents working away. He tilted his head slightly. Either they were being really, really _loud_ , or his hearing must have miraculously improved.

Intrigued, Danny sat down at the top of the basement stairs. He could hear the scraping of metal on metal, a tinkering of glass. He crept down the steps and looked around the corner of the staircase.

Maddie was clad in her blue hazmat suit, a metal welding torch in hand. Jack had his arms full to the brim with glass beakers and test tubes. Behind them, swirling green warped and warbled.

The portal.

His heart automatically quickened, his throat closed up. Danny ran. He took the stairs two at a time, sprinting away from the lab.

He hid in his room for a while, berating himself for being so weak. It was only a device, it's not like it could grow legs and run after him. He clenched his fists. Danny was not going to be scared by an inanimate object!

Again he crept down the basement steps, and again he bolted as ice cold fear clawed at his insides. Despite his better judgement, he tried a third time.

And a fourth.

Fifth.

Sixth.

And so on.

This was getting ridiculous he thought to himself, sweating from all of the running. At least his parents hadn't noticed yet, but he knew that it was only a matter of time before he was called down to the lab for some reason or another.

He picked up his phone, rang the first number that came to mind.

" _Danny?"_ Sam spoke over the line, voice laced with worry and guilt.

"Hey can I come over, or you come over or something like that," Danny mumbled.

" _Something wrong?"_

"No, well maybe. I don't know," Danny replied honestly. Was flying a problem? Or having solid objects pass through him?

" _Kay, I'll come over to you then. I'll get Tucker too,"_ Sam said realising that Danny wasn't going to say anymore.

She hung up and Danny chucked his phone on the bed.

* * *

"I'm sorry, I thought you just said that you could _fly_ ," Tucker snorted almost spitting Coke everywhere. Danny meagrely sipped at his own can.

"You sure you weren't dreaming?" Sam asked, an eyebrow raised.

"Well I know I wasn't dreaming this morning when a chair passed through me," Danny said nonchalantly.

Sam and Tucker both did spit takes.

"A chair did what?!" Tucker yelled and Danny irritably hushed him.

"Intangibility, like yesterday with the plate," Sam finally responded. She took a long gulp of her Coke, letting out a satisfactory burp afterwards.

"You're like a superhero or something," Tucker breathed, trying to beat Sam's burp. His own was quite pathetic compared to her's.

"Well show us what you can do," Sam finished her drink, tossing the can expertly into the recycling bin. Tucker tried the same thing, but missed the bin by a mile and grumpily got up to retrieve the can, ignoring Sam's smug grin.

Danny smirked at their antics, tossing his own can. He laughed when it hit Tucker in the ass.

"Real cool, Danny," he grumbled.

Danny fist pumped Sam and then got focused on the task at hand. The cold patch blazed like a blizzard in his chest and Danny reached out for it. The rings appeared, enveloping him from head to toe.

He was back to wearing the hazmat suit.

"Whoa, now that's cool," Sam poked him in the chest. "You're ice cold," she added.

"Yeah, I've noticed that when I'm like this, my heart rate and breathing slows right down. It's real freaky," Danny replied. He gathered his attention to the tingle in his bones, the buzz traveling across his skin. He saw himself rising up, feet leaving the floor. Closing his eyes, keeping that mental image in his mind, Danny felt the floor disappear from beneath him.

"Oh my god!" Tucker had lost control of his face muscles it seemed and Danny wondered how many flies he could catch.

Sam stared at him with wonder, and amusement at Tucker's reaction.

"Danny that is so cool. I'm insanely, ridiculously jealous right now," she said with good humor.

"I can even do flips if I concentrate enough," Danny beamed. Maybe being a weird mutated freak wouldn't be too bad after all.

"So have you shown your parents yet?" Tucker asked. Danny's grin slipped off of his face.

"Guess not then," Sam replied dryly "You need to tell them Danny. Come on, we'll help you do it, and make sure you don't back out," her tone suggested no alternatives.

He _really_ did not want to go down to the lab.

Sam grabbed his arm and tugged him along. Danny tried to find his voice.

"Wait! Let's call them up here instead. Eh, they'll be all distracted down in the lab," Danny bullshitted. Sam paused, giving him a look, but yelled for his parents. He gave her a grateful smile.

Two pairs of feet thundered up the stairs and Danny pulled at the warmth before they arrived, he didn't want to scare them.

"Hi Sam," Maddie said brightly. Jack boomed his own greetings.

Tucker and Sam glared at Danny when he didn't say anything. He nervously cleared his throat.

"I want to show you guys something," Danny fidgeted, a hand snaked to the back of his neck. He decided to cut to the chase and pulled at the cold.

His parents lept forward, rushing to him like he had been shot.

"I'm okay!" Danny yelped, jumping away.

"Danny honey, does anything hurt?" Maddie asked the blood rushing from her face. This was not going as planned.

"Look I'm okay, nothing hurts, I'm a-okay. I have this figured out. I can change between… Forms," Danny patted his mother's shoulder gently.

"Forms?" Jack had an eyebrow raised in confusion.

"Yeah," Sam stepped in. "Danny can willingly change forms, looks, appearance, whatever you like to call it,"

"Like a superhero costume," Tucker cut in.

"Superhero costume?" Maddie echoed.

"I can kinda, sort of…" Danny faltered and Sam stomped on his toes "Ow! I can fly!" He yelped. Sam gave him an innocent smile and he glared at her.

"I'm sorry _what?_ " Maddie looked gobsmacked.

Danny shrank down. Jack had the weirdest expression on his face, like he was trying to appear shocked but was too excited to keep up the facade.

"Show us!" Jack cried, his enthusiasm encouraging Danny.

Danny let his feet lift off the ground. His parents stared, in shock.

But then Jack smiled in delight, the grin he had could have split stones at its intensity. And beside him, Maddie, ever so slowly, created a small grin of her own.

Yes, Danny decided. This wasn't so bad.

* * *

THANKS FOR READING


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